Mr. Sandman, an Update - 31 for 21

Sleep habits don't make for the most exciting blog posts.  Who really wants to hear about a baby keeping their parents up constantly?  Well, maybe other parents who are up a lot too.  It's nice to know that you're not alone when you're suffering from chronic sleep deprivation.  Especially when it seems like everyone else's child sleep through the night.

You may remember that Cora had major sleep problems.  She started off life as a great little sleeper, but I soon learned that it was because she was in heart failure and then healing from surgery. But don't think that this meant I slept much.  In addition to being a hormonal worried mess, I was pumping constantly, waking up several times at night to pump and feed the girl.

Once I ended my slavery to the pump, Cora began to wake up.  A lot.  We'd hear her breath get caught in her throat and her breathing stop.  Then she'd gasp and wake up.  Sometimes every 5 minutes all night long.  Partly because we wanted to and partly because we were scared to let our baby with apnea sleep alone, she slept with us and needed a lot of help to get back to sleep.  There were some really miserable times then. Times that Nick and I struggled and couldn't find a balance.

Then came her tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy.  It was rough with significant complications.  Way worse than I imagined. But, after the long healing process her apnea was much improved.  She no longer stopped breathing every few minutes.  Her sleep improved too, but she was still up quite a lot (read: every hour or so, rather than every few minutes.)

A sleep study in June showed mild apnea that didn't seem concerning since her O2 sats didn't really drop.  She got a cold that night too, so the sleep neurologist didn't feel she needed treatment.  It also officially diagnosed her with insomnia.  Oh joy!

She still doesn't sleep very well, but at this point it's behavioral.

Cora still sleeps with us.  I could make lots of excuses.  With her apnea there is no way I could have gotten up with her all night long if she weren't in our bed.  And then she got really clingy and attached to me and I thought it was a bad time to try to transition her out.  She's still clingy and attached.  A couple of weeks ago we finished night-weaning her for the second time.  So at least she's not nursing all night long.

Part of me loves having her sleep with us.  But there's another big part of me that can't wait to have my sleep back, my bed back; a little space in the night without my girlie constantly shimmying up next to me, waking up more easily when she touches me and still needing help getting back to sleep.  Cry-it-out won't work for me.  I couldn't do it.

An oldie pic of my girlie sleeping. Lightly.

So for now we're just living with it.  She is awake at least 5 times a night and needs significant help to get back to sleep.  She can't put herself back.  And she's often awake for an hour or more in the middle of the night.

I admit that it's getting old. But we've accepted that its' where we are right now.  We're not quite ready to take the steps that we'd need to to change things.  We're just keeping our fingers crossed that she grows out of it. I swear my fingers may just get stuck like this.

Over a year old, but a familiar face at night, nonetheless.